Posted on 04/18/2014 6:24:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Did Jesus have a wife? According to Karen L. King, an academic from Harvard, the answer might exist in the fragment of an ancient Coptic manuscript. On this slip of papyrus, Jesus is quoted as saying “my wife,” and because of that, King notes, “this fragment seems to be the first case where we have a married Jesus who appears to be affirming that women who are mothers and wives can be his disciples.”
This story broke in 2012 and was immediately qualified by protests from other academics, who claimed the textual fragment King cited was likely a forgery. These protests arose not because King asserted that Jesus had a wife or that mothers and wives could be disciples but because the text King cited was likely bogus.
However, just in time for Holy Week this year, the pesky “Jesus wife” fragment has reemerged, this time with a verification of the fragment’s authenticity and, with it, a possible vindication for King’s claims. At least that’s what the headlines suggest.
Excited newspapers and websites speculate that if the text is actually authentic, might King’s claims about a married Jesus also be true? Before answering that question, we should add some qualifiers. First, King herself clarified that she never intended to present the fragment as evidence that Jesus was married, but merely as evidence that some Christians may have believed that he was. Second, the fragment’s authenticity, even if it were established, would not mean its provenance is the same as that of the canonical Gospels. King claims her tests show it was written four to eight hundred years after the New Testament texts.
One would think these qualifiers would defuse any controversy, but that hasn’t been the case. Sensational stories have incessantly raved that Jesus had a wife, meaning he likely had sex, thus presenting us with a juxtaposition of two realities that perennially vex and stimulate the culture: religion and human sexuality.
To add more heat to the fire, observers have insinuated that if Jesus was married, it proves he was not who the Church claims him to be. The Church’s privileged authority to interpret Christ’s identity and mission therefore collapses. The Church must have been either misguided about Jesus or, worse, guilty of an intentional hoax. This last possibility has fueled pulp-fiction dreams for decades, from Irving Wallace’s The Word to Hugh Schonfield’s The Passover Plot to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. You would have thought the culture had exhausted this pipe dream by now, but evidently not. The rabbit hole only grows longer.
All of that said, what’s most problematic about this controversy is that it centers on an uncontroversial question. Christians readily agree that Jesus was and is married, and the Church has always presented him this way. However, the real controversy is about who, precisely, his spouse is — and that question has nothing to do with a papyrus fragment.
The texts of the New Testament, which are far older than the “Jesus wife” fragment, make the extraordinary claim that Jesus of Nazareth speaks and acts in the person of the God of Israel. This is the reason the Gospel of Mark testifies that those who encountered Christ were “amazed and afraid,” and it was for this reason that the charges of blasphemy were leveled against him, accusations that led to his torture and execution. The New Testament authors suggest that Jesus’ claim to divinity was vindicated by the extraordinary event of his resurrection from the dead. Jesus of Nazareth simply is the God of Israel, who has come to his people in a manner that took all of Israel, indeed all of the world, by surprise.
The purpose of this extraordinary revelation was to effect reconciliation between God and the people he had chosen as his own. This relationship is identified in the Old Testament as that of a covenant, and the best way to understand this covenant is to look at it as a kind of marriage between God and his people. Or to say it another way, God’s purpose throughout history was to marry his people.
We see this intention throughout the Biblical narrative. It’s evident in the erotic poetry of the Old Testament Song of Songs. It’s clear in the prophecies of the Book of Hosea, in which God desires reconciliation with an estranged wife. The New Testament uses nuptial imagery in presenting Christ as the long-anticipated bridegroom and the Church as a transformed bride, reconciled to her spouse. Finally, in the Book of Revelation, all things come to their fulfillment in the wedding feast of Christ and the Church.
In other words, Jesus, the God of Israel, has a wife. She is just not the kind of wife we might expect. Her identity becomes clear only once we understand who Jesus of Nazareth was and is. Only then do we see that he married the Church, the people of God.
We don’t need an centuries-old fragment to reveal Jesus’ wife, for we can meet her today wherever the Church resides.
— Father Stephen Grunow is the CEO of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Concur. Something we all look forwards to see and welcome.
There is only one church and it's none of the above...The 'church' is not an institution...Those not affiliated with the Catholic religion understand this...
A cursory study of the the 'church' in the scriptures readily reveals this...
All Christians 'are' one...
Those seven churches mention in the Book of Revelation were ALL Catholic Churches.
It means overcoming the “denominational” trap.
Catholics can expect to be persecuted in our day, just like Christ was persecuted in his day.
mentioned
Including yours...
God looks upon the heart rather than upon the form worship takes.
Every now and then one of these nut cases has to go ‘public.’
Sad that National Review has descended so far as to give such wackos a soapbox.
.
A 73 years old, I have seen in that short span many changes in the Catholic Church. Most rewarding has been the more quiet acceptance of other Denominations. Catholic / Baptist backgrounds of my father and mother, while not a major cause of friction, never the less caused a degree of discomfort between cousins and in-laws.
I believe the fact that most of my religious instruction was by Jesuits has been the major contribution to my present status.
The same paradigm is used on AGW, and any other “science” they want to be true.
Prove it. Opinions of man don't count. Use Scripture.
Show me where it says they were CATHOLIC churches.
Show me where the word *catholic* appears in the Bible.
That ain't gonna happen unless people lose the *My church is the One True Church (OTC) mentality.
Jesus preached His message to all who would believe in Him and His message of salvation. Over the last 2,000 years we followers have done that, though not without disagreement and dissention. I believe that all of us who accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord, will be welcomed by Him into heaven. He gives us His and His Father’s Grace.
While we, here in this physical realm, disagree over doctrine, as long as we dedicate ourselves to Him and follow his teachings, we will go home to Him. We are all Christians, and if He has the grace to forgive us our sins, then I suspect that he will forgive us of our doctrinal differences.
At the time of my baptism I had the sense that all who accept Jesus as his or her personal savior, ought to be united in following Him and doing His work. That we should not focus on what divides us, but on what unites us: Our give of salvation by our Saviour, Jesus.
And I’ve realized that in our disagreements we are not helping Him with the mission He entrusted to us as his disciples.
see my post # 36
I know it just pushes some people over the edge when others won’t reveal their denominational affiliation, but your reason is part of why I don’t do it.
A relationship with Christ is not about denominations.
My identity is being in Christ, not being a Catholic, or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or a member of any number of denominations.
Churches don’t save. Christ does.
My devotion is to HIM, not an organization.
AMEN to that.
Sadly, and we may very well be seeing this starting to happen, we could be seeing a national government that will more and more be very anti-Christian, regardless of church denotionation so we have to focus on Jesus and His calling to be deciples.
Thank-you and God Bless as well.
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